


I Know, You Know

by ThatDesiGirl



Category: Psych
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fem!Shawn, Female Shawn Spencer, Flirting, Fluff, Genderbending, Rewriting Canon, Sexual Tension, Shawn is a girl, Sickfic, lots of fluff, okay guys can we please get a little more love in this fandom!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-03-28 01:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDesiGirl/pseuds/ThatDesiGirl
Summary: A series of drabbles featuring fem!Shawn and Lassiter, and a look into their relationship inside and outside of the SPBD.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey wow okay so I never thought I would ever write for this fandom although Psych is very dear to my heart. I recently got back into this show and just remembered how happy it made me, and honestly, watching it the second time around reminded me of how much chemistry Lassiter and Shawn had with each other. 
> 
> And then, I read this wonderful fic called "Baby Steps" by Vanya_Instance (go read it right now!! it's amazing) featuring fem!Shawn as well, and I was like,,, well now I'm inspired. 
> 
> So this series of drabbles was formed, and I hope y'all enjoy it!

Carlton Lassiter is a good detective. 

Since his academy days, he’s worked his way up from his days as a paperwork junkie, the rookie cop of the station, to becoming the Santa Barbara Police Department’s head detective. Sure, he’s going through a rough separation (not yet a _divorce_ , he reminds himself with no small sense of bitterness) and yeah, he’s piling up unused vacation days like a hoarder, but so what? Carlton is still sharp as a tack. There’s absolutely nothing that could crumble his solid exterior, nobody that could bulldoze the masterfully crafted walls of professionalism he surrounds himself with. 

Nobody but Shawn Spencer. 

Shawn is an enigma, a burst of energy and obscure movie references all packed into a small 5’ 4” frame and hidden under layers of skinny jeans, boyish flannels, converse, and a striking pixie cut. However, she her personality was anything _but_ small. She waltzed into his life like it was just another normal day, _psychic-ing_ her way onto the McCallum case, and solving it in a record time. On top of that, she seemed to strut around the police department— hell, _everywhere_ — like she owned the place, like she and Guster could do anything. 

Shawn soon made it clear that she is a very physical person: the arm she would loop around O’Hara’s waist without thinking, the fist bumps and little tiffs she’d get into with Guster, even once going as far as to hug the Chief (Carlton’s eyes had bugged out) tightly after getting put on what Shawn referred to as “a fun as hell case”. Carlton was no exception from Shawn’s grasp; she would elbow him teasingly as if he didn’t despise her to hell and back, call him affectionate nicknames like “Carly” and “Lassie”, and once, she had even sat on his lap. Of course, she and Guster had constructed some convoluted bizarre “psychic vision”, saying that she was “channeling a little boy-cat” or something like that, but Carlton knew better. 

Carlton knew that if he looked closely, tried hard to pry beneath the layers of jokes and diverting banter, he would find a pool of pure, unadulterated intellect. It intrigued and unnerved him at the same time. 

Carlton Lassiter is a good detective. He knows that Spencer’s psychic bullshit is just that— a hoax. Begrudgingly, he admits to himself once or twice that the act is so believable that sometimes even Lassiter is caught off guard. But because he’s a thorough detective, he can’t get rid of the aggravating curiosity deep in his gut. He didn’t know for the life of him _why_ the woman would go through the trouble of pretending to be psychic. Was it because she thrived on the attention, the ridiculousness of it all? The way she was turning SPBD investigations into some kind of circus side show? Or did she genuinely enjoy solving cases, did she want to help the community around her? 

Carlton would find out one day, he would make it his business to do so. And when he did, he would definitely arrest her for interfering with police investigations— or, or maybe for lying to the authorities about her identity. But until then, he wanted nothing to do with Shawn Spencer. 

Unfortunately for him, Shawn didn’t feel the same way.


	2. 1. Rob-a-Bye Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cool cool cool cool so here's the real first chapter which is loosely based on the episode, Rob-a-Bye Baby :) lmk what you think!

**1\. Rob-a-Bye Baby**

Lassiter trusts the guards at StarTek security about as far as he can throw them. The fact that the houses where the burglaries occurred all had the same security system was far too suspicious to be a coincidence. However, he also couldn’t fathom how the small circle of dead-beat security guards he was currently looking at would possibly have the IQ level necessary to commit the crimes. 

Even O’Hara didn’t look too ready to pin the blame on these guys, which meant they were just walking in circles. For every circle they walked in, Spencer got one more step closer to solving the case before them. Lassiter seethed at the thought. 

The fact that Shawn walked into the StarTek security room as if on cue only confirmed Lassiter’s ongoing suspicion that his life was actually just one huge comedic sitcom. Lassiter being the brunt of the joke, of course. 

“Lassie! And Juliet! Fancy meeting my favorite non-romantic crime solving duo at a place like this,” Shawn quipped immediately upon walking in, Gus in tow. 

“I thought your favorite non-romantic crime solving duo was Shaggy and Scooby?” Gus asked. 

Shawn looked personally affronted. “The Mystery Machine gang is a quartet that cannot be broken up into a duo! Even if Shaggy and Scooby are the most iconic characters.” 

“They’re a _quintet_ Shawn.” 

“What? No, there’s Shaggy, Scooby, Velma, and Freddy—” 

Lassiter’s patience was a stretched out string, pulled apart at both ends until Shawn and Gus’s inane banter finally caused it to snap with an unforgiving _thwang!_

“Alright, that’s enough,” Lassiter growled in a voice that would intimidate the most cheeky of rookie cops, but of course, only caused Shawn to beam at him, “If you two don’t have anything useful to contribute to the case, maybe you’d be better off being, oh I don’t know, _anywhere but here_.” 

Shawn doesn’t even blink an eye. 

“ _Au contraire_ , my finely feathered well-aging detective,” Shawn drawled, traipsing around the room, pausing for minute seconds to glimpse at the StarTek maps detailing the locations of the houses they service. A hand flew up to her forehead, a dramatic pained grimace making its way onto her face. 

“The spirits, Lassie, they are _buzzing_!” She swung around the room again in big loping strides, immediately conducting the attention of every single StarTek employee. Even O’Hara was looking at her with wide eyes, anticipating the so-called psychic’s deductions. Lassiter, however, was not so easily fooled; he simply scoffed, crossing his arms impatiently. 

Shawn twirls over to the side of the dead-faced StarTek employee sitting in a swivel chair whom Lassiter had been interrogating just moments before. With an over-exaggerated flourish of her arms, she bent down to his level and clasped his cheeks in both hands, staring at him directly in the eyes. Blood rushed to the employee’s face in a way that Lassiter didn’t appreciate, but Shawn didn’t comment on it. Rather, she was too busy making noises that sounded oddly reminiscent of the _Star Trek_ soundtrack, before she finally whipped her hands back. 

“StarTek didn’t do it.” 

And with that, Shawn turned around to leave blessedly.

“Wait, that’s it?” O’Hara asked, stopping Shawn in her tracks, and Lassiter groaned. 

“Well, now that you ask, the spirits were trying to project a very clear image onto me. Let me see if I can ascertain it again,” Shawn said, scrunching her eyes shut in a way that was not at all cute, Lassiter noted. 

“Helium! Crimson colors, a clown holding something attached to a string, floating in the air in our great big red—” 

“Balloon!” Juliet shouted in tandem with one of the StarTek employees, who immediately looked mortified at himself for joining in. 

“Red Balloon…” Shawn repeated, a thoughtful look on her face. 

“Red Balloon is the name of the agency that you can hire nannies through,” Guster provided helpfully. 

Lassiter narrowed his eyes, wanting to derail this unfounded train of thought and instead get on with his investigation. “And how would you know that, Guster?” 

Shawn and Gus shared a look. 

“Gus has been trying to spice up his romantic life a little bit, and I think that he’s finally found a new dating pool—” 

“Shawn!” Gus interrupted her with an elbow to the ribs, before looking back at Lassiter. “I’m helping a friend find a nanny, okay? Red Balloon Agency is the best in town. And no, I do _not_ have a nanny kink!” 

“Woah!” Shawn held up her hands in surrender, “no one said anything about kinks, buddy. That one was all you.” 

Gus gave his best friend a withering look. 

“How is this related to the investigation? Please enlighten me.” Lassiter interjected, acrid sarcasm dripping from every pore of his being. 

Shawn turned around to face Lassiter. 

“I’m so glad you asked,” Shawn said with the utmost sincerity dripping from her voice, which put Lassiter on edge. She walked towards him and gripped both of his arms with her own smaller hands firmly, and looked him in the eyes solemnly. Suddenly, he was caught in vibrant green depths, falling further and further, until her voice pulled him out again—

“Carlton Lassiter, will you marry me?” 

The blood rushed so loudly through his ears that he didn’t even acknowledge the awkward tentative clapping from the StarTek employees around them, or Guster and O’Hara’s shared squawks of surprise. 

… 

Lassiter picked up his stomach from where it had fallen onto floor after he had realized what Shawn had been truly asking him. Of course, she couldn’t ask like a normal person because she’s _Shawn_ , and that meant she had to give him a heart attack and/or aneurysm with every word that came out of her mouth, but that was neither here nor there. 

That’s how Lassiter and Shawn ended up in the lobby of Red Balloon Agency, posing as an honest to goodness lovey-dovey couple looking for a nanny for their child. _Hypothetical_ child. Just peachy. 

“So, obviously, we’re going to paint the room bright pink because we want our little boy to grow up in a world devoid of gender stereotypes, but this was the second best thing we could think of!” Shawn gushed, and Lassiter resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the fake psychic’s antics. 

“ … Right, um, Mrs. Lecter, was it?”

Shawn nodded solemnly. “Yes, that’s right, Clarice Lecter. And my husband, Hannib—” 

Lassiter coughed loudly. 

“—bob. My husband Hannibob Lecter is what I meant to say. Anyways, Mrs. Daniels, enough about _us_ , why don’t you tell us a little more about your nannies?” 

The sharply dressed lady ran a calculating hand through her brown curls, and smiled welcomingly. Lassiter recognized the ease in her posture as she began to tread more familiar ground. 

“Yes, well, we here at Red Balloon only offer the finest of nannies for your children. We perform thorough background checks and after vetting our potential candidates, we proceed to interview them and only offer you the best selection for your child.” 

Her smile was sweet as molasses, but Lassiter didn’t lower his guard. He was taking mental notes, waiting for any signs of suspicious behavior. 

Shawn, on the other hand, seemed to have other plans. 

“Oh, that’s just great! That’s just wonderful,” Shawn said, snaking an arm around Lassiter’s waist and squeezing him playfully. Lassiter may or may not have let out a yelp, which Shawn would later describe as “more endearing than a little boy cat’s”. In fact, Shawn seemed dead-set on playing the role of a loving wife, as she leaned her head into the crook of Lassiter’s arm, looking up at him from underneath impossibly long lashes. 

He swallowed. 

“Besides, with the way things are moving in this relationship, seems like we might need _two_ nannies soon,” she purred demurely, before slowly dragging Lassiter’s hand to rest on her stomach. 

Lassiter’s gut dropped to his feet. 

“I— Shaw— I mean Clarice, I— _you’re pregnant_?” 

An impishly shy smile took over Shawn’s face, before she nodded, burying her face into Lassiter’s chest to muffle the giggles. Mrs. Daniels gasped in excitement for Shawn, turning to Lassiter to see his reaction. The head detective knew that this was an act, knew that Shawn was a damn good actor, but he couldn’t help the feeling of faintness that hit him as he imagined Shawn pregnant. Little Lassiter-shaped Shawn-children running around, Shawn laughing and leaning into Lassiter. It was the image of domesticity, and Lassiter knew that he needed to go out to a bar and hook up with someone soon because why else would he be having these thoughts about _Spencer_? 

The world felt a little more tipsy just about then. 

“Mr. Lecter? _Mr. Lecter_ , are you alright? Are you breathing?”

He heard the concerned questions from Mrs. Daniels distantly, along with Shawn’s “don’t worry, he was like this when I told him we were pregnant with Hannibob jr. years ago. Would you mind getting him a glass of water?” 

The shut of a door as Mrs. Daniels hurried out of her office was what snapped Lassiter out of his shocked daze. 

Shawn detached herself from Lassiter’s personal bubble, quickly taking stock of the room around them, without missing a single beat. 

“Damn, Lassie, you couldn’t have thrown me a bone there? You seemed more like the captive held-against-his-will husband rather than the loving kind.” 

She liberally shuffled through notebooks and various items on Mrs. Daniels desk, while Lassiter glared at her, hoping to sweet Joseph and Mary that he wasn’t blushing like a schoolgirl. 

“You’ll have to excuse me if I wasn’t expecting you to plaster yourself to my body! And Clarice Lecter? Really?” 

“I was going to keep my maiden name, Sterling, but you, Mr. Hannibob, were just too _delicious_ for me to refuse.” Shawn shot him a wink and Lassiter groaned. 

With a little more digging, Shawn had gotten a supposed vision, telling her that there was a hidden panel behind a bookshelf. Lo and behold, they had moved the bookshelf out of the way only to find feeds to the baby monitors that were installed in each and every one of the houses that the Red Balloon nannies were working in. As per usual, Lassiter didn’t buy the psychic bullcrap one bit, but as per usual, Shawn made solved the case in half the time it would’ve taken Lassiter alone to do so. 

Although he should have been aggravated by that, he couldn’t help how his mind kept drifting back to when Shawn drew his hand to her belly. To when Shawn smiled up and him, to when she hugged him tight. 

Lassiter was so screwed.


	3. 2.  Me llamo Emilio Estevez Etht-eh-vez

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I have this headcanon that Shawn is at least bilingual, if not fluent in multiple languages, so here we are

**2\. Me llamo Emilio Estevez Etht-eh-vez**

Shawn Spencer is the epitome of the term “jack of all trades”. 

She’s an excellent poker player, one of the best Lassiter has seen. She’s undeniably a perceptive little shit, and her odd skill set has come into handy wherever she goes. According to Gus, Shawn has been employed as a driver, a concessions vendor, a lifeguard, a water ski instructor, a foot and ankle model (Lassiter still isn’t sure if he believes this one), and even a customer service employee for a _Ben & Jerry’s_. She’s traveled damn near this entire country, and seen things that Lassie can only dream of. 

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to Lassiter when he finds out that English is not the only language in Shawn’s repertoire.

It happens on a slow day in the station. One of his least favorite days, when both he and O’Hara were stuck pushing paper at their desks. He was itching to get out, to be put on a case, but unfortunately their paperwork had caught up with them and it was time to make up for it. This, of course, meant that when Shawn and Gus rolled in at around noon (Shawn thought that waking up earlier than noon was a crime in and of itself), they were utterly devoid of things to do. 

Which lead Shawn to setting up shop at Lassiter’s desk. 

“C’mon Lassie,” the fake psychic whined, slouching in her chair childishly, “Give us a case! Anything! We’ll do anything!” 

“Almost anything,” Guster corrected, giving Lassiter a wary look.

“Yeah, yeah, so basically anything,” Shawn waved Gus away, earning herself a stern glare from the latter. 

Lassiter rolled his eyes, feeling a headache start to form. A headache by the name of Shawn Spencer. 

“Listen, why don’t you two go bother someone else today? Unless you want to sit here and do paperwork with me, I suggest you leave.” 

He tried to inject as much venom as possible into his voice, but Shawn and Gus seemed to be immune to whatever poison he was spewing. In fact, Shawn simply groaned again with no small amount of theatricality. 

“But Lassie! You’re our favorite head detective! What would we do without you?” 

“You know what, Shawn? I should probably get a head start on my route, if we’re not going to do anything here,” Gus said, getting up to leave. 

“Wait— no, Gus!” Shawn clung onto Gus’s arm like a koala bear, and damn it if the contact didn’t raise a twinge of something within Lassiter. 

Mercifully, a distraction walked into the station at that moment in the form of McNab… 

… holding a little boy’s hand? 

Immediately, Shawn let go of Gus, opting to wave McNab over. 

“Buzz! Oh my gosh, is it bring your kid to work day? You sly dog, I didn’t know you and your wife were already at it— oh,” Shawn’s excited voice trailed off as silent tears began to fall from the boy’s wide eyes. 

“Nice going, Shawn,” Gus muttered, earning himself a kick on the shin from Shawn. 

Lassiter took a closer look at the child, noting the way he seemed to get more and more overwhelmed as people around him spoke. Anxiety was clear in his very posture, from the way his tiny hand were clutching at McNab’s uniform to the way his eyes were flitting between the people before him to how he seemed to be trying to make himself smaller. 

“McNab, who is this?” Lassiter asked him, adapting his no-nonsense voice. 

“Sir, I went to check on a report of a young, four to five year old boy walking around unattended at the local park. I tried to wait for his guardians to pick him up, but no one came. I’ve been trying to ask the boy about his family, but the problem is—” 

Whatever McNab was about to say was interrupted by O’Hara walking over and crouching down next to the small child.

“Oh honey,” Lassiter’s partner said, reaching out to wipe away the boy’s tears, drawing her hand away again when the boy flinched. “Can you tell us where your mommy is?” 

The boy looked at her again, face scrunching up as he let out a small sob. 

Juliet looked up at Lassiter, clearly at a loss for what to do.

Lassiter wasn’t the best with children, although he had always had a soft spot for the little beings. However, something was starting to add up— the way the child didn’t seem to understand what any of them were saying, the way he stubbornly refused to respond… the gears in his brain clicked right as Spencer spoke. 

“He doesn’t speak English, does he, Buzz?” 

She didn’t need Buzz’s affirmative nod. Shawn’s eyes were bright with realization, as the woman kneeled down next to Juliet to get at eye level with the child. Her smile was warm and inviting, posture soft with no traces of her usual spunk or aggression. 

“Guess we’ll just have to find out who you are then,” she said, more to herself than to anyone, before beginning to speak once more. 

“ _Wie heisst du?_ ” 

Lassiter blinked at the impromptu use of German, in a fluid accent no less. However, Shawn received no response. 

“Okay, not German then? Let’s try again. _Comment tu t'appelles_?

The boy simply buried his head into Buzz’s leg. 

“ _¿Cómo te llamas?_ ”

He jolted at the words, looking directly into Shawn’s eyes. Small lips parted in confusion momentarily, his big eyes blinking in disbelief, before he finally responded in a small voice. 

“A-Alejandro.” 

Shawn’s resulting grin was wide enough to light up the entire room. Juliet gasped excitedly, and even Lassiter couldn’t deny the small smile that came to his face as the child reached out to Shawn. 

Shawn clasped the hand gently. 

“ _Cariño, a dónde están tus padres?_ ”

The conversation went on like that, Shawn asking the child— Alejandro— questions carefully, while the child slowly opened up to Shawn. Eventually, the fake psychic turned to Buzz. 

“So, little Alejandro over here says that his mom was taking a nap when he decided to go exploring outside for a bit. Seems like this little dude is a bit too good of an explorer,” Shawn ruffled the kid’s hair, eliciting a small peal of laughter, “because one thing lead to another and he found himself lost at the park. I’m sure his mom will be calling soon to find her son.” 

Buzz beamed at the detective. “Thanks a bunch, Shawn! I didn’t know you were fluent in Spanish?” 

Shawn got up, Alejandro in her arms (the child had practically glued himself to Shawn), and grinned back. “I have many hidden talents, Buzz Lightyear, and being good with my _tongue_ is one of them.” 

The fake psychic turned towards Lassiter, flicking a pink tongue across her lips and shooting him a wink. 

Lassiter felt his face heat up a little, sputtering out a nonsensical string of words. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice, as Gus was too busy berating Shawn. 

“Shawn! Not in front of the kid!”

Shawn shrugged shamelessly. “What? I meant that I speak in many tongues. Jeez, I don’t know what _you_ were thinking—” 

“Really, Shawn?” 

“You too, Jules?” 

Later, when Lassiter had gotten over the blatant flirting, he would think about how Shawn had handled the situation. Wonder at how Shawn was so gentle with children, at how she adopted different languages like it was her second nature. Marvel at how she diffused the situation with all the grace of a soothing mother.

Shawn Spencer really is the jack of all trades.


	4. 3.  There’s something about Shawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still going strong with the Shassie :D also comments are love

**3\. There’s something about Shawn**

Carlton Lassiter is one perceptive motherfucker. 

It hasn’t been an easy journey to gaining the title of SPBD’s head detective, but it was a worthwhile one. He put in the time to sift through evidence for each and every one of his cases, finding even the slightest inconsistencies or the most obscure of clues that would lead to the arrest. His methods were tedious, formulaic, yet brutal to the point where every case eventually cracks under the pressure, cracks under Lassiter’s firm hold. He prided himself on that, really, and with due time, worked his way up to where he was now. 

Carlton Lassiter knows that Shawn Spencer is more of a perceptive motherfucker than he is. 

Shawn Spencer breaks the rules, she doesn’t follow a formula or an equation— or maybe she does, maybe she changes the rules for every single damn case she can get herself on. There is nothing predictable about her, no reason nor rhyme, and certainly no _logic_. Hell, Lassiter can’t even tell if the woman has any ambition other than to make a fool out of the SPBD while solving cases with her so-called psychic powers. And yet, somehow, Shawn’s methods seemed to work better than his. 

Lassiter notices the way her eyes squint sometimes, when they’re at a crime scene, when she thinks no one is watching. It’s a subtle movement, one that no one would catch unless they were really looking for it. The action that can’t last more than a fraction of a second tells Lassiter an entire story. He wants to see the world through her eyes, wants to see how Shawn peels apart each and every scenario layer by layer in a matter of seconds, because that _must_ be how she was so damn successful. 

Because there’s no such thing as a fucking psychic. 

(Lassiter’s heart hardens a little each time Shawn lies to his face, because maybe, just _maybe_ , he feels hurt.) 

But even without considering the whole psychic thing, Shawn is an enigma wrapped in casual flannels and a smirk brighter than a sunny day on the beach. 

She solves cases while wheedling out an endless barrage of inane jokes, references to obscure movies and music, and she’s _damn good_ at it. She commands the attention of the room she’s in and has the ability to manipulate the mood with her dramatic acts and confusing non-sequiturs. Shawn has a way of burying herself underneath one’s skin, and building a home there. He’s never seen someone more adept at forming a connection with people, as Shawn interacts with victims and perpetrators alike. However, Lassiter knows that’s just the Shawn as he knows her at the surface level. 

Under her nonsensical hilarity and obnoxious conversation, there’s something more to Shawn Spencer. 

She’s not afraid to be the person she wants to be. Although she’s never directly come out to those at the station, Shawn manages to flaunt her sexuality like it’s second nature (which, Lassiter realizes, it probably is). She flirts with every girl she can lay her eyes on, and for a moment, Lassiter really thought that she and Abigail were going to end up alright. Even after Abigail had moved along, Shawn had endlessly pestered Juliet, calling her ‘Jules’, wrapping an arm around her shoulder or just touching her in anyway possible whenever she could, and just generally batting her eyelashes at Lassiter’s partner. 

However, Juliet was straight, and Shawn seemed to be a naturally tactile person. 

It’s not like Lassiter hasn’t had his fair share of contact with the psychic. After all, there was the night they arrested Yang, where Shawn hugged Lassiter tight, thanking him for being there. He had responded something along the lines of a sheepish, “it’s my job”. Of course, Shawn’s mother did almost die that night, so Lassiter could just account that moment to the emotions of the night. However, he couldn’t ignore all the other many times Shawn had flung herself at him, poked or prodded at him both mentally and physically, or just generally got up in his space. 

Even through all of Shawn’s antics, Lassiter thinks that he can confidently say that the fake psychic liked him. 

(Not that he would say it to anyone, but there was something about the knowledge that made him feel warm inside.) 

There was the time that Lassiter’s horrid father in-law was accused of murder, and Lassiter had to hike up his pants and get the grouchy man out of this mess by going to Shawn and Gus’s Psych office. Lassiter knew he was a proud man; it had been embarrassing to even try to ask the two for help. 

It seemed that Shawn had known that too. 

_“Look around! You're in a safe place, surrounded by men... who love you. Gus?”_

_Gus turned towards the head detective. “Lassiter, I love you.”_

_Shawn clapped Lassie on the back. “Lassie-pants, I gotta say, I love you too man.”_

And how could he forget the time Lassiter himself was implicated in the murder of Ernesto Chavez? Right from the get-go, Shawn had made it very clear that she believed— no, that she _knew_ that Lassiter was innocent. If that hadn’t been enough, she even shacked him up at Henry’s house, during an admittedly low point in his life. And then she fell into Detective Drimmer’s, the real killer’s, grasp. Lassiter had got them out of that situation thanks to his tendency to hide guns around his apartment, but he can’t get rid of the feeling of his stomach dropping as he saw the barrel of the gun aimed right between Shawn’s eyes. 

The fleeting look of utter fear on her face before it was wiped away in her haste to distract the murderer. 

The way she hugged Lassiter for the second time after he had disarmed Drimmer. 

The way she… the way she was _currently_ dancing in the Chief’s office? 

Oh, _this_ ought to be good. 

Lassiter didn’t even notice the genuine amused smirk that had found its way onto his face as he walked into the Chief’s office. 

“Oh, I dazzle…and I _stretch_.” 

Shawn stalked towards the Chief, who was looking at her with a raised eyebrow. 

Lassiter couldn’t help it. “What the hell is going on in here?” 

He barely got the question out before the Chief shushed him, her attention rapt on Shawn. 

“Mrs. Spencer, what are you trying to tell us here?” 

Gus responded in lieu of Shawn, pointing to the cat on the chair. “Shawn can’t hear you right now, ‘cause, see, she’s channeling the cat… who’s, um, channeling the so-called suicide victim.” 

Lassiter lets out a sardonic chuckle as he takes a seat in the chair next to the cat. 

“Well, what are we looking at, then?” the Chief asks. 

“Bad acting,” Lassiter quipped, his eyes never leaving the now-twirling Shawn. 

“Dazzle… stretch!” 

“I think she’s trying to tell you something!” Gus exclaims right as Shawn pulls out a newspaper, holding it in front of Lassiter’s eyes. 

Lassiter squints at the black and white text in front of him. 

“Seventy percent off storm doors and window panes, everything must go.” 

Shawn seems to pause for a moment, the anticipation palpable in the room, until she flipped the newspaper over. 

The headline caught his eye, and he took the paper into his own hands. 

“Struggling actress lands big break in Santa Barbara play.” 

He knows what Gus is going to say before the words even come out of his mouth.

_Why would a burgeoning actress commit suicide right after she’s gotten her big break?_

To his side, Shawn lets out a tired groan, before collapsing right onto Lassiter’s lap. 

Lassiter freezes for a moment, the warm weight on him completely catching him off-guard. However, in true Spencer-fashion, Shawn takes it in stride, pulling her legs in and properly settling onto her new seat. 

Chief Vick furrows her brow. “I don’t know, Shawn, but it could be something.” 

Shawn’s indignant response is lost to Lassiter’s ears, as all he can focus on is Shawn’s body on his, her _ass_ unfairly grinding into his crotch, and Shawn doesn’t seem affected even a bit. 

Finally, he grits outs, “Spencer?” 

Shawn angles her head at him, blinking. She is the image of innocence, which is how Lassiter knows she’s fucking with him, because _Shawn_ and _innocent_ are two words that do not go together. 

“Yes, Carly?” 

“Get off my lap.”


	5. 4. Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's kinda angsty but also it's one of my fav chapters ;)

**4\. Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece**

The champagne glass sparkles where it sits on the pristine white sheets, perfectly topping off the scene of a lively wedding reception. Couples in brightly colored dresses with dazzling smiles danced to the beat of songs that were considered “hip” by this generation, and kids ran around the hall, shrieking with laughter. At the center of the floor was the bride and the groom, his hands on her dainty waist and her arms wrapped around his neck. The in-laws looked on with adoration, tears in their eyes. The joy was almost palpable in the air, could be felt like excitement on the eve of Christmas or anticipation during the Olympics. 

Lassiter thought it to be terribly dull. 

His marriage with Victoria had started quaint and ended quaint. The wedding was limited to family members and a few close friends, and their reception had barely lasted an hour. At the time, flashiness and extravagance hadn’t mattered to Carlton; he was with the person he loved, the person he was going to cherish for the rest of his life.

Then the arguments came. It started with little things, nit picky things. Then, Victoria wanted Carlton to spend more time with her, to focus less on working at the station, and Carlton? Carlton wanted to become Head Detective, wanted to work his way up until he had the respect of most everyone at the department and the power to protect the citizens of Santa Barbara. 

Carlton thinks that the final straw was when he asked Victoria if she was ready to start trying for children. 

_“You can barely spend time on your own wife, Carlton, and you’re trying to bring up children?”_

Lassiter takes a longer-than-necessary swig of champagne. That hadn’t been a fun conversation. 

Of course, all that was in the past, as Lassiter had tried to remind himself time and time again. Now, he firmly believed that marriage was just another institutionalized way to screw yourself over, and he was better off investing his time in becoming a better detective. For him, marriage just wasn’t in the cards. 

Maybe it just wasn’t his _fate_. 

He shook his head and took another sip of the mild alcohol, wondering when his thoughts started to sound oddly like Spencer’s bullshit about spirits and fate and— 

“No, Gus, I’m pretty sure that catching the bride’s bouquet is a gender neutral activity. You shouldn’t feel too bad about it.” 

“Shawn, you _know_ I caught it as a reflex! I tried to give it back—” 

“Ah, yes, I’ll never forget the look on the bride’s face when you hurled the flowers back at her. Truly iconic. Oh, hey, Lassie!”

_Speak of the devil_. 

Lassiter turned around to see Guster in a sleek tuxedo that he no doubt rented, and Shawn in a black minidress that fit her like a second skin. His eyes followed the necklace gently framing her collarbone, down to the slight pinching of the dress over the slopes of her chest, towards her curving waist— 

“Really, Spencer? Wearing black to a wedding?” The head detective raised an eyebrow, hoping that his face didn’t look as flushed as he felt. 

Shawn apparently took that as an invitation to sit down next to Lassiter in a seat that was most certainly not her own, and she shot Lassiter her patented smirk which warned the man that she was about to let loose a fantastical story of her own creation. 

“Well, you see, since the _men_ are allowed to wear black with their monkey suits, I decided it was time to break the glass ceiling and take strides of my own. One small step for man, one huge-ass step for women—” 

“This is the only dress she owns,” Gus cut in from beside Shawn, earning him a childish shove from the latter. 

“Dude!”

“What? Shawn, I told you that wearing black to a wedding was going to raise some eyes—”

“That’s borderline racist, Gus! What would your parents say?” 

“I will slap you, Shawn.”

Shawn rolls her eyes, before pointing out someone in the small crowd of dancing people. 

“Dude, I think that girl’s just your type.” 

Gus looked affronted. “That’s the bride. Are you serious right now?” 

“Almost never on days that end with a ‘y’. Also wow, _really_? Why the hell did we get invited to this wedding—” 

“Because Nichols down at the station was kind enough to invite everyone down at the station. We’re just lucky he thought of us too.” 

“Hey, we’re technically a part of the station!” 

Gus stares into the crowd, clearly not paying full attention to the fake psychic anymore. “Shawn, I can’t argue with you right now. I see a beautiful woman who is _not_ , in fact, newly married. The jackal is on the move.”

With that, Gus got up and began to _strut_ towards the poor, unassuming woman. 

Leaving Shawn alone with Lassiter. 

“And then there were two.” 

Lassiter didn’t bother to dignify the woman with a response, instead opting to chug down the rest of his champagne none-too-gracefully. Shawn’s eye follows his glass, and for a moment, she has an incorrigible expression. 

“Not a huge fan of marriage, huh?” 

He should be used to how she seems to nail him on the head each and every goddamn time, but Lassiter still can’t help the faint feeling of surprise as she pins him to the wall with a mere astute observation. 

“No,” he responds tersely. 

Shawn just nods, undeterred by his unwillingness to humor her. 

He half-expects her to prod, push him to his limit until he snaps, just like usual. But, Lassiter made the classic mistake of trying to set expectations for Spencer; if there was one thing that remained constant about the fake-psychic, it’s that Lassiter should always be prepared to be surprised by her. 

So, he’s reasonably taken off-guard when Spencer suddenly stands up. 

“Lassie, dance with me.” 

Lassiter blinks at her, his blue eyes glued to her open, unguarded face, until his gaze travels down her outstretched arm to where her hand was reaching for his own. Waiting for his response, with no reservations or second thoughts. And then Lassiter’s mind is somewhere else; he remembers what he once heard Henry tell Shawn when Shawn thought the detective wasn’t listening. 

_“Life is not made up of a single moment, it's made up of a gazillion moments. What defines us is the choice we make in the next moment, and the one after that. These moments, Shawn, they're happening, they're all around us all the time. You're having one right now.”_

Maybe the Lassiter that Shawn had first met would have turned her down, made the decision to shrug it off as another one of the fake psychic’s silly and unexplainable antics. But the Lassiter of this moment, the Carlton of the present saw something in Shawn’s face; he couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but a small voice at the back of his mind whispered of words that sounded faintly like _hope_. Lassiter knows how it feels to hope and try and fail, fail his marriage and lose himself in his cases. Shawn fails over and over again, makes a fool of herself in front of the department with her crazy assertions that usually start way off base, but then she picks herself up and finds the answer. It’s as if _failing_ is just a part of her process, just like having hope in the fact that she _will_ get what she wants in the end. 

As Lassiter takes her hand, notices the smile on her face widen instantly, he thinks he made the right choice. 

For a moment, the room is just him and Spencer, hand in hand, standing at the edge of a precipice. Then, Shawn’s soft hands tighten around his as she pulls him towards the dancefloor, the detective following wordlessly as he’s pulled through small throngs of people and kaleidoscopic flashes of colored light. It’s silly, he knows, but Lassiter feels almost self-conscious as he’s being lead into the fray; his throat is dry and suddenly his tie is a little too tight, his sweaty palms betraying his nerves. 

As they come to a stand-still, Lassiter finally registers the song playing. It’s a slow-ish one with a melody that can only be described as a melancholy kind of romantic, as mellow guitar strums accompany a deep lulling voice. 

The detective remembers how to speak again once Shawn has her hands on his hips, leading him to the sway of the song. 

“Spencer?” He clears his throat, hoping that the dryness of it was not too obvious. 

“Yes, Lassie?” 

“Your hands are on my hips.” 

“Mm, astute observation.” She raises an eyebrow at him, and the corner of her lip quirks up subtly. She’s teasing him. 

“Isn’t that the guy’s part?” Lassiter didn’t know much about dancing, but he had a vague recollection of learning how to dance for his and Victoria’s wedding. He remembered those classes with no small amount of disdain. His body was stiff and his dance moves lackluster, but he did know that the groom usually lead the bride with _his_ hands on _her_ hips. 

“Well, someone has to lead, right?” Shawn says before letting out a small theatrical gasp, and giving Carlton’s waist a little squeeze that may or may not have sent a jolt through his body. “Or maybe _you_ can lead? I’m sensing that you have a few _dance lessons_ under your belt. I also assume you have much more under your bel—” 

Lassiter rolls his eyes, and shifts his hands onto Shawn’s hips, effectively shutting her up. 

There’s a near visceral level of warm satisfaction coursing through his body as he notices the endearing pink flush blossom across Shawn’s cheeks, as her eyes avert to the side momentarily in her embarrassment, before she meets Lassiter’s gaze with her usual shamelessness. _So even a psychic can act coy, huh?_

The show of shyness, no matter how brief, boosted the head detective’s confidence. He was also hyperaware of his surroundings, marveling at the softness of Shawn’s hips under his firm grasp, the way she seemed to melt into him without any hesitation, the warmth of her being slowly getting closer to his body. She was open and vulnerable, ripe for his picking, and Lassiter could never resist a good game. 

In a bold move, he pulls Shawn in closer, smirking at the _squeak_ she lets out, so that their bodies are near flush as they sway to the slow beat of the song around them. He raises an eyebrow at her questioning gaze. 

_Your move_. 

Shawn snorts softly at the challenge, before reaching her arms upwards and wrapping them gently around Lassiter’s neck. Instead of the self-satisfied smirk Lassiter expected to find on her face, there was an expression he had never before seen on the usually snarky and obnoxious fake psychic. Her eyebrows were relaxed, pink lips upturned slightly at the corners, not wide enough to be truly joyful, but rather, she was the picture of peace. 

Lassiter tried to swallow, only to find that his mouth had gone dry. 

When was the last time he felt this at peace with someone else? Why was Shawn looking at him like he’d hung the moon for her? Since when did he feel like she had painted the stars in the night sky for him? Why was he suddenly imagining an entire future, steps taken differently, leading to the two of them… the two of them… 

He could barely finish the thought, voices from his past failed relationships chorusing through his head unbidden. His own mother had told him that he jumped too quickly into dating, gave away his entire soul before his partner had even agreed to a second date. She had cupped his chin, and said that he was the most passionate, loving soul that she would ever know. Certainly better than his no-good, absentee father. He just needed to take things slow, to gauge his time and put himself first. 

But by some stroke of what must be misfortune, Lassiter kept finding people who he wanted to put before him. Who he wanted to cherish, wake up next to in the morning to watch their adorably drowsy face, to make them breakfast in bed and massage their feet and rub their back after a hard day. Underneath his rough exterior, he was an awful romantic, and his mother had known it. His heart had suffered from it. 

And he didn’t know if his heart could take another round. 

Lassiter made to move away from Shawn, gently untangling her arms from around his neck until he held her hands in his. The confidence had shattered like a pitiful illusion, leaving confusion and weariness in its wake. 

“Shawn— I mean, Spencer, I—”

Shawn looked up at him, bright green eyes catching his own blue ones, and he can see a world of understanding in them, attained in a matter of seconds. He will never understand how she knows exactly where she stands in any given moment in time, how she knows exactly why the mood shifted, exactly what he feels when he doesn’t even completely know what he wants. It’s frustrating, it’s terrifying, it’s awe-inspiring, and above all, it is purely Shawn. 

So he doesn’t move away when she squeezes his hands in hers. So, he stays and listens when she begins to talk to him in the middle of that dance floor, bodies moving around them with abandon and music engulfing their words into oblivion. 

“I had a few bad break ups. I mean, who doesn’t, right? We all have those stories, the ones that end with either us or our date or sometimes both of us escaping through the bathroom window.” Shawn chuckled. 

“My worst one was with this person I thought I loved. Man, it took me a goddamn while to get to that point, too. Ask anyone, ask… ask Gus! He knows how much of a commitment-phobe I am, it’s like trying to get a cat to take a bath. Or the sun to come out at night. Or a _million_ cats to take a bath—” 

Lassiter gave her a pointed look at her typical tirade, so she cleared her throat and continued. 

“So anyways, me and this woman were closer, closer than fungus. We grew on each other to the point where she somehow managed to convince me to move in, and I convinced her stick around despite my many, many quirks.”

Even though the last statement was vague, Lassiter had a feeling he knew what she meant by the umbrella term of “quirks”. It was the same set of personality attributes that Guster put up everyday of his life, the same things that Lassiter and Juliet and the Chief dealt with whenever Shawn decided to be especially theatrical. However, there was one thing that tugged at Lassiter’s mind insistently. 

He cleared his throat. “Woman? Spencer, are you… ”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I swing both ways Lassie-pants, but you don’t need a detective to tell you that. Anyways,” she took a deep, uncharacteristically uncertain breath, before continuing, “one day, I decided that she was the one. She was it, the Princess Leia to my Hans Solo, and I had to have her. So I went through with the whole shebang. I got a ring, asked her out to a real classy dinner, dressed up in my finest of garbs, and was going to… was going to propose over dinner.” 

Lassiter felt like his heart was in his throat. 

“I was so goddamn nervous, my heart on my sleeve and I knew that if I didn’t get myself together, there would be puke on my sleeve too,” Shawn laughed, “and so I finally popped the question. I was there, on my knees, hands sweaty and looking at her like she was the only person in my entire world, Lassie. When she looked at me, I really, really thought that she was the one. I thought that right up until the second her eye twitched in what must have been mild horror, right until she got up slowly and just walked away. And that was the end of that.” 

Lassiter looked at the psychic in what must’ve been matching mild horror. Shawn laughed again at the man’s expression, taking the opportunity to pull his hands back around her waist, and Lassiter found that he couldn’t let go, wouldn’t say no to this. 

“Yeah, she looked kinda horrified, just like that.” Shawn teased, pinching Lassiter on the cheek. 

Lassiter does not respond. He is silent, wondering at how Shawn managed to tear down his walls by first breaking her own, marveling at her gentle teasing words and proximity to him. He understands bad break ups, and he knows that if he had known his marriage with Victoria would have gone so sour, he would rather have had Victoria reject him right off the bat. However, hindsight is 20/20 and Shawn had loved her girlfriend, and he supposed even a fake-psychic couldn’t read every single situation. 

“Lassie?” Shawn’s smile slowly faded away at the detective’s prolonged silence, a painstakingly stark sliver of uncertainty revealing itself.

“I… how do you do it, Spencer?” 

Her laugh this time is a little bitter. “What, drive people away?” 

He holds her tight where his arms are wrapped around her, holding her still for emphasis. 

“How do you keep trying?” 

_How does she keep flirting with everyone, showering their day with sly compliments and fleeting touches? How does she manage to continue being so attentive to others, burrow her way underneath their skins until she builds a home in their hearts? How does she keep doing it?_

She shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Because I really want someone whose face is gonna remind me that everything is okay, y’know? Someone who’s my ride or die, someone who’ll take care of me and put up with me and let me do the same. That’s what love is.” 

There’s another moment of heavy silence before a brilliant shade of red flushes through Shawn as she no doubt realizes how horribly romantic her words sounded. Lassiter openly marvels in the way the color rushes through her, the Shawn Spencer underneath _Shawn Spencer: Psychic Detective Extraordinaire_! 

Shawn babbles something incoherent, before trying to pull away, but this time Lassiter holds on tight. She is looking at anywhere but him, her heart pounding and face glowing, but he wants her to stay. Lassiter knows how interrogations work: to get a little, you have to give a little. This was no interrogation, but he felt that a similar principle applied. Shawn had given him a piece of her heart, so naturally, he had to pay back the sentiment.

That was why he blurted out words he never thought would resurface within him again, words that he thought he had silenced long ago. 

“Victoria left me. Everyone down at the station thinks it’s just been six months, that we’re just separated.” He punctuated his words with bitter laughter. “It’s been two goddamn years. I tried, I tried to reconcile. I tried everything I could to keep her, but when she wants something, she gets it. This time, it just so happened that she wanted to leave me. I think…” Lassiter takes in a deep breath before saying the words he had known deep down inside, the words that he had never told another living soul before. “I had brought it up before, the topic of _children_ , but… I think I always knew somehow that she didn’t want children. Not with me.” 

There. He had said it, and it felt goddamn terrifying and liberating at the same time. There was a weight on his chest lifted, only to be replaced by the anticipation of waiting for Shawn’s response. She looked up at him, a flash of sorrow clear in her expression, but not a single ounce of pity. 

“Oh Carlton,” she breathed so lightly that he wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear it. She said louder then, “you’re a catch, you know that?” 

She didn’t say the words flirtatiously or even salaciously. She simply meant it as a truth, glared at Lassiter until he nodded with a bemused smirk on his face. She said it more as a statement than a question, as if she were reminding Lassiter of a fact. Grass is green. Water is wet. Lassiter is a catch. Lassiter deserves more. 

The song changes to a brighter one, one that has the people around them dancing with vigor and spirit. Lassiter’s heart is lighter, and he feels like he hasn’t aged fifty years since his marriage. He feels alive, blood under his skin thrumming with the rhythm of the music, pulsing underneath the warmth of the woman in his arms. 

Shawn and Lassiter are swaying together to their own beat, but their feet pick up the pace as their bodies gravitate towards each other. 

“Well, then, Spencer, what kind of person are you going to marry?” 

Shawn smiles thoughtfully. 

“Maybe a woman or a man, or someone in between. Someone with spirit, someone who can _dance_ ,” she emphasizes by gently stomping on Lassiter’s foot, before leading them further into the throng of people. 

Her devious grin is the only warning Lassiter gets before she raises herself up on her tiptoes, leaning in so that her soft lips brush the sensitive lobes of the detective’s ear. Electric shocks jolted through him at the minute touch, and his body stiffened in anticipation. 

She whispered, “Oh, but I know I want loads of kids.” 

Shawn left him on the dance floor to pick up the pieces of his short-circuited brain, shooting the detective a flirtatious wink and blowing him a kiss. 

Lassiter wonders how many refills of champagne he can get.


	6. 5. Shawn and Lassie get the Yips (and other various illnesses)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did someone say obligatory sick fic?

**5\. Shawn and Lassie get the Yips (and other various illnesses)**

Shawn is needy when she’s sick. She drags anyone and everyone around her into becoming her own personal caretaker, whether she means to or not. She’s stubborn and wily, and knows that if she tells Gus that she was feeling a little under the weather, he wouldn’t drive her to the station. So, even though she woke up a tad too dizzy and a tad too warm, she says nothing. After all, Shawn Spencer is nothing if not resilient. 

The first time she falls sick on a workday is a sunny one, a day that’s too obnoxiously bright and happy if you asked her. Her head pounded as if Gus were back in his middle school band days and drumming on her forehead instead of on his drums. Her throat felt dry and her thoughts were not exactly connecting in what one would consider a coherent manner. It was like every time she tried to grasp onto a specific notion or train of thought, it would slip from her fingers like a particularly notorious bar of soap. 

Maybe it wasn’t her best idea to show up to the case debriefing that morning. The sea of blue uniforms around her waved viciously like an abstract mosaic of color, and she was swaying in tune to the turbulence. She had even bumped into Juliet earlier today, grasping onto her shoulders firmly to stand upright, before belated saying, “Jules!” in greeting. Juliet had given her an odd look, before Gus steered her away into the debriefing room before Shawn could get up to anymore of her antics. 

However, with the blood rushing through Shawn’s ear and the unexplained opera music playing in the background that only she seemed to be able to hear, Shawn thinks that she was just about at her wits end. Even Gus was starting to give her weird concerned looks, but she didn’t think much of it. Actually, she didn’t think much of anything at the moment, except for how the soundtrack playing in her head was turning awfully high-pitched. 

“Hey Spencer— woah,” Lassiter passed by her, giving her a once-over that resulted in a grimace. 

“Hey-o Lassie-pants,” Shawn said, her voice sounding ten times better than how she felt. She could barely hear herself over the goddamn music. 

The head detective studied her for a moment before shaking his head. 

“You don’t look too good, Spencer. How about you sit this one out?” 

And if that wasn’t the darndest thing to hear out of Lassiter’s mouth. If Shawn weren’t currently barely mentally present, she might’ve even said that there was a hint of concern in his words. Instead, she mumbled something along the lines of, “I’d love to, but it seems I’ve forgotten what sitting means, you devious bastard.” Which was quite accurate, because Shawn was having trouble remembering a lot of words. 

The detective simply blinked at her, completely unfazed by her odd behavior. The concern didn’t leave his eyes, but he still went to the front of the room to debrief the case to the group. 

As much as Shawn would have loved to pay attention, she instead found herself slowly humming _Ave Maria_ under her breath, since that seemed to be the song that was blasting within her brain at the moment. It was bearable for now, but the volume kept on increasing, pounding at the walls of her skull, as if begging to get out. She leaned into Gus slightly, who immediately was her pillar of support, as always. 

Good ol’ Gus. She would have to remind her best friend that she loved him, sometime. 

“I know you do, Shawn,” Gus said quietly, concern lacing his voice, and _oh_ she hadn’t realized she had said that aloud. Some part of Shawn felt like she should be embarrassed, but that wasn’t an emotion that her brain could currently comprehend. 

“Shawn? Are you okay?” 

Words weren’t a thing that wanted to happen right now, so instead, she just smiled dopily at Gus, before turning back to Lassiter. Lassiter, whose tight pink lips were moving, saying words that were too far away to hear. Lassiter, whose focus was impeccable, and whose frown seemed to deepen by the minute. Lassiter, who was looking straight at her. Lassie, who was trying to ask her a question, barely audible over the noise in her head. 

“Wh-hut?” Shawn managed to gasp out. 

He shot her a look of utter exasperation. “I said, do you and Guster want to share what you were talking about with the class, or can I get on with the debriefing?” 

Shawn stared at him for a long five seconds. She thought that if Lassiter’s words were a font right now, they would be _Wingdings_. Usually, they were something boring, something along the lines of _Arial_ or _Times New Roman_ , but today was special for some reason. 

“Spencer?” 

The fake psychic wanted to respond to Lassiter, she really did. But the music was really obnoxiously loud and Shawn’s head felt really light. 

She instead reasonably asked, “Can you lower the volume?” 

“What?”

Shawn felt the weight of many eyes on her, but it was nothing compared to the sharp pain of the incessant noise lancing through her head. She rubbed at her temples, feeling the blood thrum loudly under her hands. 

“Please, just…” _Make it stop_. 

But words seemed a distant concept once more, and suddenly there was a wetness dripping down her nose and past her lips, a wetness that tasted like copper, and the music was replaced by noises of alarm from the people around her. Shawn felt a tell-tale lurch in her stomach, and thankfully, Gus had the urgency to drag her towards a wastebasket before she dropped to her knees at a bruising speed and emptied the meager contents of her stomach none-too-gracefully. 

Tears streamed down her face from exertion, and blackness ate away at the edges of her vision. When she looked up, Lassiter was already there, kneeling besides her (she would have to ask Lassie later how he teleported like that later), rubbing her back soothingly. If she had control of her faculties, she would have said something along the lines of, “come here often?” but instead, she opted for passing out to the voices of concern around her. 

When she woke up, it was to bright white lights and a room that smelled painstakingly sterile. _A hospital_ , her brain supplied sluggishly. 

She blinked her eyes open slowly, her entire body feeling like it had been through the wringer. Turning to her left, she saw Gus sitting up in a chair, dozing away. Despite her eidetic memory, her recollection of the events prior were alarmingly fuzzy. 

“Gus,” she rasped, reaching out to grasp at her best friend’s arm. He startled awake in an instant, being the light sleeper that he was. 

Bright relief immediately flooded into Gus’s eyes, his eyebrows unfurrowing and worry lines fading away. And then his expression hardened again, and Shawn knew what was coming— 

“Shawn, you damn near worried all of us! You knew you weren’t feeling well this morning, why the hell did you show up today?” Gus berated, and Shawn winced at the volume of his voice. Evidently, he noticed the small gesture, because he quieted towards the end of the well-deserved tirade. 

“Let me guess,” Shawn said, her throat still too dry for her liking, “you looked up the symptoms on WebMD?” 

The twinkle of knowing in her eye was not appreciated by her best friend. 

“I thought you had food poisoning! Or kidney failure! Or, or—” 

“Dude, relax, it was just a little puke—” 

“And a nosebleed! A nosebleed, Shawn!” 

Silence settled between the two, before Shawn broke it. 

“So, what’s the verdict?”

Gus let out a mirthless laugh. “Low blood pressure. Can you believe it? You have a knack for drama, after all. Although, I guess Lassiter was more dramatic than you were this time.” 

Her relief from her non-life-endangering condition was immediately replaced by curiosity. 

“What do you mean?” 

Gus studied her for a bit, before saying, “I’ve never seen a man so whipped. He would barely let anyone else touch you, Shawn. Carried you to his car himself, like he were in some kinda action movie. I expected him to bitch about not letting you get any blood on his precious car seats, but instead he just turned on his goddamn sirens and made a beeline for the hospital. Shawn?” 

Shawn felt her face flush a little, which had nothing to do with her feeling sick. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she waved off Gus’s concern, trying hard not to think about Lassiter _carrying_ her. “Where is the man of the hour anyways?” 

Gus snorted, amusement clear as day. “He got kicked out. He was fussing real hard, getting on the nerves of every nurse and doctor, until finally they politely asked him to leave. And when he politely told them to shut the hell up, Juliet dragged him away.” 

“God bless her soul,” Shawn said, but there was no mistaking the huge smile on her face. 

Gus stared at her.

“What?” 

He simply sighed.

“You and him are a force to be reckoned, you know that Shawn?” 

Shawn grinned. 

… 

Lassiter is damn near needier than Shawn when he’s sick. Lassiters are a hardy type of people, and they rarely fall prey to illnesses like the common cold. But the stronger they are, the harder they fall, and Carlton is no different. When he falls sick once in a blue moon, it’s like a freight train hit him, leaving him motionless and absolutely _sweltering_ underneath his sheets. 

Of course, this also means that the cavalry arrives. 

The first time he fell sick on a workday, he woke up that morning with no semblance of direction and a severe feeling of vertigo, so suffice to say, he wasn’t answering the many phone calls left on his work cell. This lead to Juliet dropping by to check up on him like a good partner, which also resulted in Spencer and Guster following closely behind. The two had cited the reason as wanting to see why the detective, who had a track record of never taking any days off from work, would possibly be at home instead of helping the citizens of Santa Barbara. 

Shawn had speculated that the apocalypse was nigh. Guster thought that Lassiter had finally had it up to here with their antics and decided to become a secluded yogi on the cusp of moving to the Himalaya mountains. Juliet thought that Lassiter must have simply been sick, and the three had walked into Lassiter’s room to discover that Juliet had hit the mark. 

“You always were an excellent marksman, Jules,” Shawn said. “Marksman? Markswoman? Markspeople—” 

“Shawn,” Juliet interrupted the fake psychic with an exasperated look, before walking over to Lassiter, and holding a hand to his forehead. “Oh, Carlton, you’re burning up.”

Lassiter just grumbled in response, his eyes screwed shut. 

The trio had tried to rummage around his house for supplies, but there was only a meager supply of aspirin and a half-empty bottle of Tylenol that seemed to be steadily approaching its expiration date. 

Juliet sighed, taking a look at her watch, before shaking her head. The chief had wanted her back within the hour to work on her share of cases, but at this rate, she wouldn’t make it back on time. She then looked at Shawn and Gus pleadingly. 

“Guys, can you—” 

“Take care of ol’ Booker? Yes, we can, Jules, now you go on and get back to the Chief.” Shawn shot her a wink and Juliet nodded thankfully. 

“I owe you one, guys,” she said as she left the room. 

Gus elbowed her none-too-gently. 

“Really? Taking care of Lassie? That’s what we’re signing up for? I wasn’t aware that babysitting fell under the jurisdiction of _Psychic detective_ , Shawn!” 

Shawn rolled her eyes. “Oh, c’mon Gus, what _doesn’t_ fall under our jurisdiction?” 

Gus shot her an icy look 

“Okay, okay, how about this? I’ll take care of Lassiter here, and you go out and be a good little driver and pick us up some real medicine?” 

Gus tch’d, but left Shawn with Lassiter anyways. 

As the door shut behind Gus, Shawn let out an audible sigh. Of course Lassiter would be the type to overwork himself year long, just to fall prey to exhaustion and whatever other seasonal illness was going around. Shawn should’ve called it, but quite honestly, she was surprised he didn’t get sick more often. As she went to the kitchen sink to run a clean towel under cool water, she wondered just how often Lassiter _did_ get sick. It was obvious no one else was here to take care of him.

Did he just ride it out every time? Just waiting for the fever to break, for the sun to come up again, for the day where he would be fine to slip back into the daily routine of going to the station and coming back home? Did he neglect his health completely and immerse himself in his cases? 

A slightly sour taste settled on Shawn’s tongue, not wanting to think about the questions to which she already knew the answers. Instead, she went back to Lassiter’s room, and sat on the bed next to him. The fake psychic couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. Even while resting, he had a severe expression, brows furrowed and lips downturned in his signature grimace. She half-expected the detective to be sleeping in his work attire, complete with suit and tie. However, it seemed that a simple cotton shirt and boxers were enough for Lassie, and something that looked oddly like garters. 

“Carly, you know you need to get more rest, right?” She murmured light-heartedly, laying the back of her hand across his forehead. It was sweaty and burning at a worryingly high temperature. 

Shawn remembered how her own mother would care for her when she was sick, sitting by the side of her bed and telling her stories. She would never have to read them from the book, since her eidetic memory served her well. Shawn supposed that it served herself well too. 

As Shawn laid the wet cloth across his forehead in an attempt to lower the poor man’s temperature, Lassiter grumbled some more, shifting his position in bed until his hand had escaped from underneath the covers. It was moving, reaching for something, as if he were a near-blind man looking for his glasses. Shawn was mesmerized by the motion, and by some unknown force that usually fueled most of her impulsive decisions, she clasped his own probing hand with her own. 

Lassiter stopped moving, and so did Shawn’s heart. 

And then the worry lines on his forehead seemed to fade slowly, his breathing becoming steadier as he fell into a calmer state of rest. His fingers interlocked with Shawn’s as he squeezed gently, and Shawn couldn’t help the smile that came to her face. 

Lassie didn’t talk much when he was sick. He barely woke, and when he did, he was delirious, babbling nonsense about the station and his cases. But Shawn could be patient when she put her mind to it, and so she tended to Lassiter for the rest of the day, propping him up at one point to get chicken noodle soup (courtesy of Gus) into his system, and making sure he took some medicine for his fever. 

When Lassiter awoke at 2:00 A.M. to find Spencer dozing on the floor next to his bed and Guster snoring away in a chair, he couldn’t explain the absolute state of refreshment he felt. However, he knew it had something to do with Shawn, and maybe some part of him knew that he would be returning the favor time and time again.


	7. 6.  Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know I had to do it to 'em  
> Also this is the angst chapter youre welcome :D

**6\. Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark**

Shawn thinks that she makes understandable leaps of faith. For example, during the case when they had found a man with suspicious bite marks on his abdomen, Shawn had immediately gone with “dinosaur” and didn’t fail to voice her thoughts aloud either. Gus liked to call this _being rash_ or _making decisions that lead Chief Vick to not assign them on cases_ , but Shawn disagreed. 

Although, today was one of those rare days that maybe she was feeling a little (just a tiny bit) remorseful for the string of decisions that lead her here. Tied up in a chair, stabbing pain in her shoulder from where she was shot, captive in an obscurely-located gas station. Black was threatening to eat at the sides of her vision, and with every passing minute, even she was losing the usually endless supply of willpower and dated movie references. 

Time was starting to blur, which was a bad sign, Shawn knew. A somber thought struck her: what if she _didn’t_ make it out of this situation? What if the trigger-happy man decided to shoot her dead, or what if she just bled out and went the slow way? What if Gus didn’t figure out the cryptic string of texts that she had sent him? Shawn had just started a relationship with Abigail, and she didn’t even get a chance to figure out if she was the one or not. Hell, she hadn’t even gotten to tell her dad that she forgave him despite all his bullshit and despite the messy divorce with mom. What would Henry tell her mom if she didn’t make it? Even in the toughest of cases, usually Lassie or Jules was there to bail her out— 

_Lassie_. 

Suddenly, an idea struck Shawn, clearing the haziness of her mind like a lightbulb in the fog. She had remembered seeing photographs on the wall as she was dragged into the gas station, photos of her shooter with a beautiful red-haired girl. He had a lover, which meant he could potentially sympathize with her. And where there was sympathy, there was an _opening_ for Shawn. 

As if on cue, the man walks in, pacing the floor in front of her anxiously. His entire posture screams aggressiveness, but there is also a hugely underlying current of _worry_. His fingers are twitching, which Shawn doesn’t like, considering the pistol that he was holding in his hand. However, the man was unsettled, almost like a caged animal. Pushed into a corner because he had no choice. 

He wasn’t a killer. 

“She’s gorgeous.”

The man stopped at Shawn’s breathy voice, her throat dry from lack of water. However, he doesn’t acknowledge her words with a response.

So Shawn continues. 

“The girl— _your_ girl. You love her, don’t you? Beautiful long ginger hair, green eyes that won’t quit,” Shawn let out a breathy chuckle which threatened to taper off into a fit of coughs. 

Silence meets her words, and Shawn’s heart sinks a fraction. But then the man slowly nods. 

“Yeah, yeah I do. How’d you know?” There is suspicion in his voice, but also curiosity, clear as day. Shawn can work with curiosity. 

She smirks slightly and says, “I’m a psychic.” 

There’s a pause before the man nods again.

“After all this is done, I’m going to take the money and leave with her.” 

_Of course. The money from the armored car robbery.._

Shawn thinks that the man just wants to find his happy ending and put this mess behind him after they complete the robbery. She also knows that their lives are now contingent on each other’s— if he gets his happy ending, Shawn ends up dead. If she gets hers, then he ends up in jail. She took in a deep breath, knowing that her words would very well change the course of her life. 

“I’ve got a girl too. H-her name is Abigail,” she can’t help the stutter in her voice, but hopes it will help convince the man. “Man, you’ve gotta let me call her. I know… I know I’m not getting out of here alive, but this girl? She means the world to me, and I have to tell her the things I didn’t get to tell her, okay?”

She knows by the painfully conflicted expression on his face that she’s winning. To cinch it, she throws in, “you can hold the phone, dial the number, and hang up if anything seems even remotely suspicious, alright? You’re in control.” 

Albeit reluctantly, the man grunts his affirmation, and soon Shawn’s face to face with her phone. Although it’s in her captor’s meaty hands, she’s starting to feel like she’s not quite hanging off the edge of a cliff anymore. Her heart still races a mile a minute when she recites the number that she had memorized since the moment he gave it to her, with his salt and pepper hair and stern expression. The one she may not see every again. 

Her captor types in the number, and the phone rings. 

Once. 

Twice. 

There’s a _click_ that signifies someone picking up the phone on the other end, and a gruff voice. 

“Spenc—” 

“ _Hey_ ,” Shawn interrupts quickly, not wanting the man holding her phone to look too deep into the masculine voice responding to her, “This call is to…” 

She trails off for a moment, a hundred different scenarios running through her head at once, ones that she can’t distinguish. Some are bittersweet, some taste of the future that she could have had, some seem like a past not worth living. But mostly, she sees him, Lassiter, a constant in her life, someone who she absolutely _adored_ teasing, loved to see the flush on his face as she poked and prodded at her with sharp wit and eccentric sayings. She takes a deep breath and continues, trying to ignore the irrational lump that had suddenly welled in her throat. 

“This call is to say goodbye. Don’t… don’t ask my any questions, because I can’t say anything else. If you care about me, then you’ll understand.” 

Distantly, Shawn wonders just how much Lassiter cared about her. _Cares_ about her. 

“We're not going to be able to have... much of a future anymore, but... back at where we were, I'll be there, okay? The wind chimes that I got you for your birthday... every time you hear them from now on, that'll be me.”

She dropped in the subtle hint about the wind chimes, hoping it would lead Lassiter to her location. However, her time is up, and her captor is poking her stomach with the gun, growling at her to hurry up, for Shawn to say “I love you” and be done with it. 

Shawn Spencer never liked to say that she didn’t deliver. 

“Listen, before… before I go, I have to say one more thing. I need you to know that … I love you.” 

Shawn knows that Lassiter can’t respond, but she imagines the look on his face. She imagines the expression of surprise, his electric blue eyes wide and his lips parted just a tad as he stared at the phone. She knows it’s wrong, knows she has a girlfriend who she _lov—_ who she likes. There a million reasons why Shawn knows she has the break the illusion she has created for herself, but she can’t pick a single one. 

Instead, she just says, “Goodbye, Abigail.” 

… 

Lassiter holds the phone in his hand. 

Even after it had hung up, he didn’t move. He had just heard Spencer, _Shawn_ , confess her love to him, in the most heartfelt, serious message ever to have come out of the psychic’s mouth. Lassiter felt exposed in the most intimate way, stripped down like a naked wire. He had felt like Spencer had dug right under his skin and embraced him so tight that he wouldn’t be able to forget the feel of her body on his for an eternity. Hearing her emotions so clearly, so blatant in her uncertainty and her desperation was indescribable. 

And then Spencer had said _Goodbye, Abigail_. 

The world had shattered into a million pieces and rearranged itself in the course of a few milliseconds. 

It made sense, after all. Of course Spencer had thought she was talking to Abigail. She was dating the girl after all, hell, Lassiter didn’t even know if she was into _guys_ that way. What didn’t make sense was the way Lassiter’s heart had seemingly stopped and then started again, kicked rudely into overdrive as Shawn said her goodbyes. 

But then, all of that didn’t matter as Lassiter remembered the emphasis Shawn placed on the windchimes. 

_Windchimes_. 

Lassiter knew where Shawn was. 

Shawn Spencer was a resourceful bastard. 

… 

In the end, they caught the bad guy, and Lassiter and Juliet had volunteered to drive Shawn to the hospital. It was a nerve-wracking and frankly traumatizing experience, as the crudely-done bandages that Garth Longmore, Shawn’s shooter, had tried to patch her up with had pitifully fallen away. The bleeding had started again, and although in any other case, Lassiter would’ve thrown a fit about getting blood on his backseat, he thought they had more pressing matters as Shawn’s eyes fluttered shut and her breathing became more and more labored. 

Juliet hopped into the backseat with her, trying to stifle the bleeding and keep Shawn awake, but her exhaustion from the past 24 hours was clearly winning the battle. Juliet would later recount to Shawn how when they had finally made it into the hospital, Lassiter had cleared a path aggressively, yelling and barking out orders to the unimpressed nurses to _get the hell out of the way_ as Shawn was placed onto a stretcher and wheeled into the emergency room. 

She also remembered how Shawn drifted in and out of unconsciousness, but for the periods when she was relatively lucid, she would grasp onto Lassiter’s clothes and mumble incoherent nothings. 

Juliet had never seen such a soft expression on her partner’s face before.


	8. 7. Last Night Shawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! This chapter is literally just lowkey smutty, lol. Honestly, I love Shawn and Lassiter's characters on the show, and their dynamic was perfect. Anyways, hope you enjoy and leave a comment :)

Shawn gasps as strong hands travel down her hips, clutching at her with a novel gentle passion. Soft lips trailed fleeting kisses from her navel up to her chest, lighting fires beneath her skin. The sinuous movement of his mouth on her was going to be the end of Shawn Spencer. She let out a whimper as he started on her neck, a wet tongue caressing the crevice between her throat and shoulder before he sucked _hard_. The worshipping mouth stopped then, eliciting a muted moan from Shawn as she arched her hips up, grinding into a spot she _knew_ he couldn’t deny her access to. 

When she opened her eyes, green met electric blue. 

“Seems like you’re having a blast, Spencer,” Lassie murmured, teasing in his voice as his face loomed over Shawn’s. Shawn had never truly noticed how built Lassiter’s arms were, but with them caged around her head like a promise of what was to come, she deeply appreciated whatever Gods allowed him to be so _toned_. 

However, not one to be one-upped even in the middle of— of whatever the two had going on, Shawn opened her mouth to respond something undoubtedly witty. She was cut off by the sharp twin sparks of pleasure and pain shot up her spine, her retort tapering off into a breathy moan. 

Shawn soon realized what the root of the sensation was, as she saw a firm hand on her chest through lidded eyes. The bastard had decided that it was the prime time to pinch her nipple and _oh_ , the way he was massaging at her breasts should have been illegal. Lassie alternated between firm squeezes and gentle nips with his mouth, eliciting high-pitched, barely audible moans from Shawn. 

“Lassie,” Shawn breathed, stopping the man in his tracks as he heard the utter _want_ in her voice. He shifted his body so that his nose was almost flush with hers, lips ghosting over hers. She was exposed, heart and soul laid bare for him to devour, and the utter range of possibilities of what he could _do_ to her made her heart race. 

If someone had told her that tonight, she would be making love to Carlton Lassiter, she would have laughed. And then cried. And then flipped them off. However, last night, Shawn had been a woman on a mission. 

_The station had been at someone’s retirement party. Shawn couldn’t remember his name to save her own life, and Gus seemed more interested in the retirement cake and free drinks, so they were both in the same boat. Somehow, Shawn had ended up taking a seat next to Lassiter, and she had wheedled him all night, as she usually did whenever she was in the vicinity of the head detective._

_However, it was different that night. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the fact that Shawn hadn’t gotten laid in over a month, or maybe it was just_ time. _Shawn was tired of waiting for Lassiter to make the move, tired of waiting for someone else to acknowledge the sheer chemistry between the two no matter how much Lassie liked to say that he despised Shawn._

_She saw it in his eyes. She knew what she could be to him._

_And so, Shawn had leapt off the precipice of the cliff that night. She had flirted with him relentlessly, trailing her hands up and down his body at any given chance, subtle enough for others not to notice what she was doing, but just the right amount of purposefulness for Lassiter to get the idea._

_When she finally cupped his jaw meaningfully, grinning like a high schooler who’d had her first kiss, she noticed the fire in his eyes. The way his pupils were blown with something carnal, something raw and animal._

_Shawn wanted it._

Even now, with Lassiter’s lips on hers, his tongue artfully exploring within her, Shawn wanted all of Lassiter. She wanted his human side, his animal side, all of his kinks and habits and secrets and guilty pleasures. She wanted to consume him and grow him, be by his side and fuel him. She wanted him to be a part of her for the rest of her life, she wanted this to never end. 

It took all of Shawn’s self-restraint and then some for her to break the kiss, pushing Lassiter away gently as she gasped for air. 

Lassiter smirked, the _self-satisfied smug little fucker_ , his dexterous fingers running through her hair as she reeled from the passionate kiss. 

The head detective leaned in again to kiss her, but Shawn had to say something, say _anything_ , because by God, she could imagine a future with this man, and—

“Lassie, Lassie, wait,” she breathed out as Lassie’s lips hovered right above hers. He stopped, but his fingers were itching lower and lower, feathering lightly over her crotch. She gasped again and canted her hips upwards as a reflex, prompting another chuckle from the detective. 

“Oh my God,” she mumbled as the feather-light touch became less light and more _purposeful_ , rubbing blissful circles over her folds. She could feel herself losing her inhibitions to the pleasure, wanting to slip further and further into his embrace. 

“No,” she said, holding his hand with trembling fingers. 

“Spencer—” 

“No, Lassie, if we’re going to be a thing, then I need to tell you, I just need you to know—” 

“Spencer, if you say you’re not actually psychic, I swear to god—” 

His threat trailed off as Shawn bit her lip sheepishly, the absolute picture of guilt. Her heart raced, and she knew by the slight widening of his eyes that her silence was as good as a confession. He knew the truth now, and she was terrified of what he could do with it. She was terrified of how much she trusted him with her secret. She was terrified of how fast she was falling for Carlton Lassiter. 

He looked at her for a moment more, before sighing. 

“I know.” 

_Oh_. Shawn supposes he had been saying since day one that she was a fraud, a phony, and a cheat. After a heart beat, she spoke. 

“Really?”

“Of course I know.” 

There was no resent, no regret. 

Lassiter smiled at her. It was a small quirk of his lips, but it spoke volumes to Shawn. Suddenly, a weight was lifted off her chest, making room for a flooding of emotions, emotions for the man above her, emotions for the step she was taking, emotions for the turn her life was about to take. For the new adventures should we face with him, for the new journey and the new memories. The emotions for them _together_. 

Shawn returns his smile with a brilliant grin, reaching her arms out to wrap around Lassiter’s neck, pulling her lover flush to her body, allowing him full access. He leaned in for another kiss, the first of many.


End file.
